


Homicide Detectives

by aohatsu



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Cops, Hiding Their Feelings, M/M, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-31
Updated: 2012-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-13 06:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aohatsu/pseuds/aohatsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a victim looks enough like Archie that the chance is too good to pass up, the investigation of a murder takes a turn for the worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homicide Detectives

**Author's Note:**

> This is a cop!au, and there are mentions of things that you'd see on any episode of a cop show--murder, rape, violence, etc. However, there are no actual written scenes where that stuff occurs. Well, maybe violence. Sort of. If you're okay with watching an episode of _CSI_ or _Law and Order_ , you're okay to read this fic.
> 
> Written for **rpf_big_bang** , though, haha, it's not the first thing I'd intended to write for this challenge. Beta'd by Hecklin. Thank you, Bekka! This story was encouraged by 38409742 wonderful people. I love all of you incredible amounts. ♥ This fic is based on an episode of _Rizzoli & Isles_. Characters are mostly in-character, but keep in mind that this is an AU, so some (very small) aspects might be a little tilted. 
> 
> [Here is some fantastic art](http://kimmay7.livejournal.com/34781.html), by the amazing and _fantastic_ **kimmay7**. Go look and comment and give her all your love. She seriously deserves it, she's incredible.  <3 (Also, I was told to inform you all that some of her graphics have spoilers for the story, so.) She also made the icon I'm using. ISN'T IT GREAT? And she made a fanmix. YOU SHOULD SERIOUSLY LISTEN TO IT AND COMMENT YOUR LOVE AT HER. Okay? Okay. ♥

David’s still not sure how Cook manages to drag him to random sport-things all the time. He gets, like, bowling, maybe? It’s fun (sometimes) when they get to do things together—like the last time, when David’s ball, um, rolled backwards instead of forwards and even though Cook laughed for a _really long time_ , eventually he got up and, um, he got behind David, all close, and _touching him_ , like, enough that David could feel the way his stomach moved when he spoke and, and _breathed_. He was just moving David’s arm and, um, hips, trying to get David to stand right, but it was, you know, and—

Okay, maybe David knows how Cook gets him to come to these things after all. But _still_ , this soccer game is boring. Really, really boring—they’re in the second half already, and neither team has even scored _one point_. It’s to the point that David is wishing he’d opted to stay home and watch _Wicked_ with Missy curled in his lap, even with her pushing her tail in and out of his face whenever she wanted him to scratch in-between her ears. (At least she’d be paying attention to him, and not, like, ogling at the row of pretty girls wearing _practically nothing_ a few feet away from them.)

“Hey, Arch,” Cook says, still grinning as he looks at David, only turning a few inches. “Third girl down, black hair, pony tail, orange top.”

And David looks, because—well, maybe she was doing something bad, like, littering, and that’s totally arrest-worthy and would at least get them out of the game early. She’s glancing up at him too when he looks, and he smiles (because you _have_ to smile when you meet someone’s eyes, it’s so rude not to, Gosh). She licks her bottom lip and gives him a wink, before turning back to her friends, and jumping into some sort of conversation. David’s bright red when he looks at Cook, who is _still_ grinning, and not like, embarrassed at all, the _jerk_.

“She’s cute, huh?” Cook says, obviously expecting an affirmative, and David just shrugs out a nod and turns back to the game, trying to ignore how red his face must be right now. 

Oh, the blue team scored. Cool. At least somebody’s day is working out then.

* * *

Right as the Riverhawks score, the opposing goalie missing the blocking catch by _inches_ , Dave’s phone goes off, still set to Archie’s version of _Heaven_ —and there’s a story to that, but basically the lesson to be learned is: Archie, three scotches after a bad case, and a karaoke bar are always, _always_ an _awesome_ combination. (Archie doesn’t really agree, and still generally sticks to his, “Just water, please,” rule, even though Dave’s promised (multiple times) that he won’t let him get (too) drunk again.)

He groans and digs it out of his coat, then pushes a button and says, “Cook here.”

“Body on 8th and Washington, Cook. Male, mid-twenties, multiple stab wounds. Get down here. Bring Archie.” It’s Johns, as always. (Well, no, sometimes it’s Carly. But that’s practically the same thing, considering they’re always telling him about a murder or are too drunk to remember taxi’s exist for a reason—see: not waking your friend up at two in the morning when they haven’t slept in forty-eight hours just to come pick you up at a bar.)

Dave rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Shit, the game was just getting good.”

“Riverhawks winning then?”

“Fuck you, Johns.”

“Married, mate,” Johns says before Dave shuts his phone and cuts the Aussie’s voice off. He sees Archie looking at him curiously, and nods while letting out a long sigh. “Come on, we’ll just have to get the end score later. Johns’ has got us a body.”

“Okay!” Archie says, cheerfully enough that Dave narrows his eyes.

They climb down the bleachers, and Dave waves at the blonde in the sports bra sitting with a few of her friends, and then grins when she laughs and jumps up, running over to him. Archie backs up a step, but Dave lets him be—the guy’s always shy when it comes to women. Honestly, he’s not sure how long it’s even been since the kid’s been laid. (Archie has this ridiculous thing where he only sleeps with women he can honestly see himself _marrying_ at some point, which is just—yeah, exactly.) 

“Here,” the girl says, smiling, and sidles up close to him, reaching into his pocket, before biting her lip and turning around, running back to the other girls, ponytail bouncing against her back. 

“Thanks!” Dave calls, and pulls out the ripped piece of notebook paper she’d deposited into his jeans, the word _Ariel_ and her number scrawled underneath it, on the center, in purple gel pen. See, this has potential. 

“Cook,” Archie says, tapping his foot on the grass impatiently. “Dead body?”

“Yes, I’m coming!” Dave says.

 

Dave pulls on a clean pair of latex blue gloves before bending his knees and looking down at the man’s body. Rigor’s set in. He’s been dead about sixteen hours, give or take. There are, as far as he can tell, six knife wounds, five in the chest—quick, fast jabs—and one in the jugular, presumably the killing slash. The blood’s soaked into the black gravel, pooling underneath the wheel of the silver Ford the man was laying against when some poor girl had found him.

“Diabetic,” he says, under his breath, as he sees the glucose manager clipped to the belt on the victim’s waist.

“Cook,” Archie murmurs from where he’s standing, a few feet away, near a dumpster. 

“We’re looking for a knife,” Dave tells him, still looking at the body as he takes a photograph of the stab wounds. He mentally catalogues how fancy—and expensive—the man’s clothes appear to be, and adds, “About an inch wide. Probably a kitchen knife.”

“Cook,” Archie says again, and Dave takes one more flash with the camera before standing and turning around. Archie is standing up straight, looking at Cook patiently, and holding out an evidence bag in his right hand. It’s already sealed, but contains a red-handled kitchen knife, about an inch wide, blood still layered on it thickly.

“Wow,” Dave says. “Arch, we’re looking for an idiot.”

Archie rolls his eyes.

Dave turns back to the body, staring down at it. He looks young. With a soft sigh, he leans back down and as carefully as he can manage, slips two fingers into the man’s bulging jean pocket, pulling out a black leather wallet. _Anthony Eakes, twenty-eight, male, donor._ His license shows him with glasses, and when he was smiling, he kind of looked like— Dave glances back at Archie. He shakes his head.

“Johns,” Dave says, and the other detective, sniffing around the yellow tape with Carly to keep passer-by pedestrian’s away, turns around and says, “What? Find something?”

“Evidence bag, give.” 

“You’re the laziest cop—“

“Detective.”

“—the laziest _detective_ I’ve ever had to work with. How has Archie put up with you for so long?”

Dave grins.

“Alright, here,” Johns says eventually, handing over the bag. Dave drops the wallet in, scrawls across the yellow seal, _wallet_.

“So what are we thinking?” Johns asks. “Angry wife?” He points to the silver band on the man’s ring finger. “Or girlfriend?”

Dave shakes his head and pulls out a swab to swipe the blood off the man’s face and bag it as well, just in case anything went wrong during body transport—which has in fact happened in the past. It’s not a story Dave likes to re-tell, not surprisingly. “No, I don’t think so. He didn’t have one.”

“How do you know? He could have been cheating on the wife. Most men do.”

“Stop projecting your opinions on the case, Johns,” Dave says, and can see Archie’s frown out of the corner of his eye. “Not all men do. Besides, I meant he didn’t have a wife.”

“You miss the ring on his finger?” Johns’ says, skeptically.

“Picture in the wallet is him and another guy, Johns,” Dave finally says, labeling the other evidence bag. “He had a husband, not a wife.”

“Well…” Johns says, hesitantly. “Angry husband then? Or Boyfriend?”

Dave stands up, and nods, slowly. “Maybe. Let’s get him back to the lab.”

* * *

“Come on, Archie,” Cook says. “We can’t work twenty-four hours straight and DNA’s going through processing already.”

“You still have to interview the husband, Cook,” David says, pulling on the latex gloves he always wears when going into the morgue. “And I haven’t seen Missy all day—“

“Missy’s fine, just come out for dinner with me. An hour, tops, and you’ll be home free.” 

David really hates—um, dislikes, hate is such an awful word, and maybe it works for, like, murderers, but nothing about Cook really deserves the use of a word like that, even if he can be really annoying sometimes—it when Cook acts all nice and friendly and stuff. He can never say _no_. “Alright,” he mumbles. “Can we at least go to the new Ethiopian place down the—“

“Already have reservations at Bob’s, Arch. Next time, okay?” It really kind of sucks that Cook smiles, really big and showing his teeth, and David can’t even pretend it’s not totally endearing. (Again, in an annoying way, but he’s used to that by now.)

“Are you two coming in or just going to flirt at the door?” Syesha calls, and David turns around and swings the door open to walk in. The room is cold—has to be, for the corpses, or they decompose faster—and despite the intense cleaning that goes on every day, smells slightly like decomp anyway. (Syesha, the coroner, claims that it smells fine, but Cook says it’s because she’s used to it, which, um.)

Cook, right behind him, says, “Alright, Mercado, what have we got?”

“Died between two and three AM. Throat cut, five separate stab wounds—the knife you guys found is definitely the one that did that, though DNA hasn’t come back yet. The size is perfect,” Syesha jumps right in, putting her hands on the victim’s body as she points out the wounds. “He was sexually assaulted as well.”

David frowned, “Were there—“

“No traces of semen, sorry. But the lab found two separate blood types on the knife, right?"

“Yeah,” Cook says, and then asks, “Was there any evidence of him fighting back?”

Syesha shakes her head, and gives them a look. “This’ll be surprising for you, I bet. Judging from the amount of blood, the knife wounds and sexual assault took place post-mortem.”

“Woah,” Cook says. “He was stabbed and raped _after_ he was dead?”

David shakes his head, confused. “What killed him, Syesha?”

Syesha shrugs. “Fear, adrenaline. His heart was over-stressed, his alcohol level was point nine and he already had complications due to diabetes. There could have been something else, but I haven’t found it yet.”

“Alright,” Cook sighs, and looks at his phone as it lets out a short beep. “The husband is here. Thanks, Syesha. Tell us if you find anything more out.”

“Wait,” Syesha says, grabbing a light and switching it on, holding the victim’s hand up. Blue lettering on his hand becomes visible, and Archie leans in to read it. 

“The Alegre?” he asks nobody in particular.

“Is that an admissions stamp?” Cook asks.

David shrugs. “It’s a lead, anyway.”

 

“You’re coming in for the interview?” Cook says, five minutes later, not looking at Archie as he grabs the folder on his desk. 

“No,” David says. “I’ll watch through the window. I think Carly’s wanted to do an interrogation for a while.”

Cook gives him a horrified look. “Why would I want to teach that woman how to be _more_ terrifying?”

“Carly only scares you because she can get Johns to do anything she wants,” David says. “And she needs experience.”

“She does not!”

“Just take her in, Cook, or I won’t go to dinner with you!” At Cook’s wounded look, he adjusts. “Please?”

“I _severely_ dislike you right now, and I think in order to make this up to me, you need to have a beer tonight.”

“No.” And this time David dodges around Cook and walks down the hall, ducking into the room connected by a two-way mirror to the room where Cook and Carly will be conducting the interview. Interrogation. Mostly an interview, at this point. They don’t know if Anthony—the murder victim—’s husband did anything or not. (Although that’s generally who you suspect first, the husband or the wife.)

Johns is next to him in the room, and waves as David shuts the door behind him. “You’re not joining Cook?”

“Carly wanted to.”

“Ah. But to see a woman in action,” Johns muses, grinning rakishly. “And she can’t even yell at me if the eyes stray.”

David grimaces, and blurts, “Don’t you ever worry about Stacy finding out?”

Johns frowns, and gives him a look, his eyebrow raised. “It’s all just fun, mate. Carls’ and I—we’re just friends. Stacy’s my one and only, don’t worry about it.”

David must be looking at him dubiously, because he adds, “And if you ever see me doing more than harmless flirting, go ahead and kick me in the ass. Or get Cook to do it. ‘Course that bastard would probably enjoy it.”

“Yes,” David says, as Cook walks into the interview room, Carly behind him, and Garrett, the husband, looks at them tiredly. “He probably would.” (Johns isn’t paying attention anymore though, is watching as their respective partners sit down across from the husband.)

Cook’s voice comes through a bit fuzzy because they haven’t bought new speakerphones for a couple of years at the agency—budget cuts—but it’s clear enough in any case, and when he sits down, slowly explaining that Anthony Eakes is dead, David closes his eyes. He never likes to see the victim’s family’s faces when they find out.

“How long have you been married?” Carly asks. Her tone is softer than when she’s talking to Johns or Cook, but is maybe similar to when she’s talking to David or Brooke in secretarial. It’s kind of comforting, somehow, and makes you want to answer her truthfully, and feel like you can.

“Two years,” Garrett chokes out, his hand pushing on his forehead. “I can’t believe—he’s _gone_.”

Carly falters here. She doesn’t have much experience dealing with the actual victims, or their families, yet. Cook coughs, and says, “Do you have any idea what Alegre is?”

Garrett nods. “Of course, it’s the club where Anthony and I first met. Why?”

“Is there any reason he would been there last night?”

Garrett falters, “I—no, there shouldn’t have—he should have been at home. He—wasn’t?”

“We don’t know. Mr. Eakes—I don’t mean to be rude, but where were you last night between nine and twelve?”

Garrett just shakes his head though. “You just have to ask everyone close to him, right? I don’t—I don’t mind. I was bowling with the LGBT League at Alley Falls. We won, so we went out for drinks at the Red Clove down the street—I didn’t know Anthony was—was— We were going on a trip, this—this fall. On a—a cruise, to Alaska—“

Cook puts a hand on Garrett’s, and nods, slowly, as he says, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

David breathes. 

* * *

“Oh, yeah,” the bartender says, looking at the photograph Dave had handed him. “He came in Monday nights like clockwork—at seven or so, generally. Ordered a rum and coke. It’s crazy he’s dead.”

They’re at the Alegre, after finding it hidden behind a bunch of larger buildings, stone concrete on the outside, bright lights and leather stools on the inside. Only half is actually a bar, a large enough space on one end of the building for a stage and dancing.

Dave nods. “Yeah, it is. Did his husband ever come in with him?”

“Not that I know of, but then I didn’t even know he was married. Seemed pretty friendly with the other patrons, if you get where I’m going with that.”

Inwardly sighing, Dave asks, “Did you see if he left with anyone last night?”

The bartender lifts his head, stares at the ceiling for a moment, as if trying to recall something, but then just shakes his head. “No, sorry. There was a pretty blonde thing he’d been talking to, but that one stayed in until I had to kick him out at two in the morning, drunk off his ass.” After a moment, the bartender adds, “Of course—I called a cab. I didn’t let him drive home drunk.”

Archie, quietly standing next to him until then, scrunches his nose and says, “I’m sure you did. Do you know how we might be able to get a hold of the man you, er, called the cab for?”

“No, though he might come back. He seemed to be having fun.”

“Alright, thanks,” Dave says, before the bartender smiles at him. 

“Hey, you can come back any time you want to yourself. Maybe off hours,” the bartender says, and slows his hand as he washes a martini glass with a wet towel. “If you’re up for that sort of thing.”

Dave grins, shaking his head smoothly, and getting a look from Archie, before glimpsing a large man walking in through the back entrance. “Who’s that?”

“Ralph? He’s the bouncer—not that anything gets out of hand, usually, but he watches the doors, helps make sure guys in the wrong sort of mood don’t stick around the bar to cause trouble,” the bartender says. “He’s squeaky clean, but maybe he saw your man leave?”

Dave nods absently and walks towards Ralph, burly and dark-skinned. “Hey, Ralph,” he says, grinning. “Mind answering a quick question?” He flashes his badge.

“All yours,” the bouncer agrees, nodding and glancing at Archie, who’s standing behind David, lifting his own badge. Dave steps in-between them carefully, forcing the man’s eyes back from Arch’s waist—Dave is going to assume the waist, or he might get violent—to Dave’s face.

He hands him the photograph of the victim. “You see him leave last night?”

The bouncer looks sparingly, and then nods. “Around midnight, wobbling all over the damn place. He was definitely drunk enough. Left alone though. Why?”

Archie says, quietly, “He was murdered last night.”

The man looks taken aback, glancing back at the photo. “Fuck,” he says. “That’s—damn, where’s it stop? The shit we get from some of the people who walk by—“

Dave narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Homophobic assholes,” the man says, and pulls a flyer out of his pocket. It has a picture of two men kissing in a circle with a red slash, reading ‘The Sons of Adam who sin must be persecuted’. Dave winces. “I cover those damn flyers with my own. There ain’t a goddamn thing wrong with any of us, you know?” The second flyer he shows them has a rainbow—Dave’s not so sure that’s helping with the cause as much as making it something to laugh at—stretching across the background, but the text reads, ‘IF YOU HATE US, WALK THE OTHER WAY.’

Dave nods his head, takes the flyers. “Thanks for talking to us.”

“You just make sure you catch the asshole that did this,” the man says, before cursing to himself as he walks over to the bartender.

Archie brushes against Dave’s arm when he comes closer, and says, “Could this be a hate crime then?”

Dave shakes his head. “I don’t think so. The vic wasn’t around here when he died, and the stabbing happened after that. This was different, Arch—it wasn’t somebody who happened to find a dead gay man and decided to desecrate the body. Somebody specifically targeted this guy.”

Archie hums discontentedly, and Dave shakes his head. “We’ll check into it anyway, alright?”

“Okay,” Archie says, softly. 

Dave throws an arm around his shoulder as they head back to his car, away from the bar. “Don’t do it, Arch,” he says, quietly, and feels Archie tense underneath his arm.

“I’m not trying to.”

* * *

David groans as they walk into Bob’s. It’s a really big burger restaurant, and Cook loves it because the burger’s are _huge_ and come with so many fries you can’t eat anything else for a week. David doesn’t mind it, exactly. He always orders half of whatever meal he gets, and Dublin—the puppy Cook rescued from an abusive home two years ago (kind of stole, actually, if Archie wants to get technical, but, um, it's not like he doesn't _approve_ —is always more than happy to eat the leftovers, so it’s fine. But when they walk into the restaurant this time, right away David sees a pretty blonde and her friend with black hair, and they’re (definitely, even if he momentarily hoped he was imagining it—) the two girls who had been looking at him and Cook earlier, at the soccer game. 

He doesn’t like it when Cook does these, “You need to get laid, Arch!” surprise blind dates of his. They never end well. _Ever_. (Mostly because David knows who he’d rather—but that’s not an option, never has been, never will be.)

“Cook!” he hisses, and tries to take a step back before the girls see him, except Cook is gripping his shoulder tightly and he’s cheerfully yelling out, “Ariel! Brittany! Hey!” So now he’s stuck. If David cursed, now would be the perfect moment to implement the whole, um, cursing thing. 

Brittany, the darker haired girl, dressed in a pretty (far too revealing) red sundress, smiles and waves at David, while Ariel jumps up and runs at Cook, hugging him around the torso. David doesn’t want to know when or how Cook, in-between now and this morning, got to be such good friends (more than friends, probably) with her.

They sit down at the table, and David endures the introductions with a small smile. Oh, well, he thinks. It’s just one date anyway. He can deal with that.

 

Two hours later, David is in-between staring at his empty plate and listening to Cook recount their first week on the job. “And the detective I was with at the time—not Archie—reached out to grab the guy, right? But all he got was the belt buckle and he _yanked_ so the guy’s pants fell clean off—“

“Oh my God!” Ariel yells. “He at least had underwear on, right?”

“No! He was _butt-ass naked_ , and of course I was too far away, but Archie’s patrol car was right around the corner—Arch, God, he’s the fastest guy on the force, I swear, runs like a mile every morning or something—“

“Cook,” David complains.

“—anyway, he just jumps out of the car and _tackles_ him—“

“That’s not how it happened! You were running after him, all out of breath and _dying_ practically, and I could barely hear you wheezing ‘Thief, thief!’ but it was pretty obvious and—well, I had to catch him, and he had totally pulled his pants back up by then! Not that I wouldn’t have, um, tackled him if he hadn’t, just—”

Brittany is giggling and Ariel is laughing loudly, when they both get up at the same time and say, “We’re just going to the ladies’ room,” and, “Be right back!”

As soon as they turn the corner, still giggling, Cook jumps around in his chair and says, “Man, you have her in the _bag_. She’s totally eating up the whole shy thing. I bet she’ll go home with you. I know Ariel’s coming back to my place—“

“Cook, I don’t even—“

“Archie.”

“ _Cook_.”

 

David has no idea how he ends up taking Brittany back to his apartment. She’s fumbling next to him as he pushes his key into his door, and he thinks she probably drank one too many of those strawberry daiquiri’s she and Ariel had been drinking all night. They fall through the door together, David still just trying to help her stand up straight. (Even if he had been planning on sleeping with her, he definitely can’t _now_ , she’s all, inebriated, so he’s still confused as to why she’s even in his apartment at all. He’s just going to get her water and aspirin and put her in a taxi, dang it.) She hurdles onto the sofa, and Missy yowls as she narrowly misses being sat on. 

“Oh my God!” Brittany yells, and Missy shoots across the floor, coming to an angry halt underneath the table next to the door where David has just set his keys. She hisses from where she’s hiding, extending her claws in a defensive manner.

“You have a _cat_!” Brittany yells again, and David winces.

“Um, yes? Her name is Missy—“

“I _hate_ cats! I’m totally allergic!”

“Oh, oh my Gosh, I’m sorry! I called a taxi? They’ll be here any minute, so you can—“

“You called a _taxi_? What kind of jerk _are_ you!?” she yells again, and this time David doesn’t even know what he did. She’s standing up, pulling at her skirt (even though it’s been riding up _all night_ and she hasn’t touched it before now—David thinks it’s a sign that she’s not happy anymore).

“What? I thought—you were really, um, drunk, so—“

“Yeah, so we could have _sex_ ,” she says, angrily.

“Oh,” David says, weakly. He steps aside as she grabs her purse and storms out the door, sneezing twice along the way. He tries not to hear the string of expletives falling from her mouth as she leaves, and shuts the door quietly once she’s gone, probably to wait for the taxi which actually should be there already. 

“Missy,” he says eventually, and leans down with his hand curled out. Missy walks forward and nuzzles her face against him until he picks her up and sits down on the sofa, running a finger down the silky patch of black fur along her ears and nose, contrasting with rest of her white coloring. She purrs against his hand, and he tips his head back, staring at the ceiling.

That definitely—didn’t go so well.

Not that he’d been expecting it to.

* * *

Dave yawns while walking through the doors, two coffees clutched in his hands—well, one coffee, one _orange juice_ in a Starbucks cup. Arch is Mormon—they’re weird, and drink things like juice and milk in the mornings, instead of deliciously hot caramel and chocolate cappuccino’s with whipped cream and tiny little straws you can use to draw little shapes if you do it quick enough. (Again, Mormon’s are weird. What kind of person doesn’t go for a cappuccino in the mornings?)

Archie looks up from his desk when Dave places the orange juice on top of it, and then looks at Dave’s cup before shaking his head. “You’re going to have to run on Dublin’s walk if you’re drinking that whole thing.”

“One cappuccino is not going to make me fat, Arch,” Dave says before pouncing on his chair, giving it a long spin.

“But you have one like three times a week—“ Archie tries protesting. _Tries_ being the keyword. David is progressive—he likes the fact that Archie is so dedicated to his Mormonism, it’s pretty fucking awesome. He respects it. Just—he’s not so in love with Archie’s never-ending quest to get Dave coming to Church with him. And even though Arch will deny it if you say so, he’s always secretly trying to get Dave to go to church with him, or drink less coffee, or go running in the morning, or stop cursing, or drinking beer or, whatever, you-name-it. If it wasn’t so damn endearing and heartfelt—because Archie honestly thinks that’s the way to go—Dave probably would have gotten annoyed at some point in the past five years. As it is, he tries not to curse or drink too much _in front_ of Archie, and every time he switches out coffee for orange juice when they work late and go to IHOP’s in the morning together, he pokes Archie into doing something off the opposite side of the spectrum—namely, watch an R-rated movie. He’d tried porn once, but the resulting week-long silent treatment hadn’t been worth the look of horror on Arch’s face, so—never again.

“You already know if you’re not there to make me do it, I’m not doing it.”

Archie sighs, and gives him an annoyed look, which reminds him—“Hey! So, you and Brittany, huh? How’d it go?

Archie winces and says, “Cook, you’re the worst friend ever!”

“What happened? You didn’t forget to wear a—“ Dave starts, guessing the one thing he _knows_ Archie didn’t forget, grinning.

“Oh my Gosh, no, Cook, you’re gross! She was allergic to cats!”

Five minutes later, Dave is still laughing hard enough that it hurts, when Johns’ walks in and asks, “What the hell’d you do to him, Archuleta?” (Which makes him laugh harder, because Arch’s face goes from pink to _red_ , from annoyed and embarrassed to exasperated and embarrassed. God, he loves that man.)

Carly’s right behind Johns though, and a short, balding man is right behind her. “Cook, the Adam’s Son’s organization director?”

Dave straightens up, and offers the chair across his desk to the man. “Mister, uh, Wagner?”

“That is my name, son. How can I help you today?”

“Sons of Adam,” Dave says, lifting up the folded flyer from his desk. “Your catchphrase is that homosexuals should be persecuted.”

“And the Daughters of Eve, of course. It is just as unholy for a woman to lie with a woman as for a man to lie with a man. Such sinners need to be stopped.”

Carly sits slowly into the other seat near Dave, and says, “By any means necessary? Murder, for instance?”

Mr. Wagner chuckles, and looks at Dave, not Carly, when he answers, “A woman on the police force—and judging from the accent, not even a woman from our own shores. No wonder she’s so upset by the murder of a homosexual.”

Dave is about to say something to that, when a chair lands heavy on the tile nearby. Johns is sending the man a glare—and Mr. Wagner, racist, sexist, homophobic, looks to the floor and doesn’t repeat the insult, though he does say, quieter, “Homosexuality is the work of Satan.”

Dave says, “You seem pretty full of hate so early in the morning, Mr. Wagner. Where were you yesterday morning between two and three?”

Mr. Wagner gives him an alibi that turns out credible when Archie makes the call checking it out five minutes after the man leaves. David sighs. 

“It could have been one of his protégé’s?” he asks nobody in particular.

Carly turns her head. “Maybe, but I think we have a better chance looking back at the Alegre.”

“Why?” Dave asks, sitting up in his chair.

Carly gets up and leaves for a moment, before coming back, carrying a laptop in an evidence box. Dave puts down the coffee he was sipping at and uses the wheels on his chair to roll over to Archie’s desk, where she’s setting it down. “This is the victim’s personal laptop,” she says, opening the lid to—uh— “He erased his history almost constantly, but with some digging I found this.”

Johns laughs while Dave just shakes his head, and Archie—Archie’s ears tip red and he looks away from the website, and the images of near-naked men with bulging muscles (some of them in, uh, interesting positions with other near-naked men who look a bit like—well, twinks, yeah). “Hey,” Dave says, nodding at an advertisement on the side of the page. “Grow six inches in three days, Johns. Maybe that’s what I should get Stacy for her birthday.“

“No need, mate, she likes it naturally lar—“

“You’re disgusting,” Carly scoffs, and pushes Johns out of the way, stealing his spot next to Archie. 

“Apparently _the victim_ ,” she says, and Dave shakes his head, starts paying attention, “used this site on a regular basis. His account has seven messages from different guys he was meeting up with at the Alegre on his husband’s bowling nights.” Archie looks sick, Dave thinks. He’s always getting too involved with the people behind the cases, too emotional, even when Dave warns him against it when he sees it cropping up—all too often. (If Dave could figure out a way to hold him back, keep him away from it, protect him from that—)

Archie asks, weakly, “He was cheating on him—on his husband? For sure? It wasn’t just—friends?”

“No, definitely cheating,” Johns shrugs. “I told you most men do.” And after a moment, “Or at least want to. Is there any proof he actually met up with anyone off this site, Carls?”

“A few are saying they’d like to meet up _again_ , Mike,” she points out, popping up a message to show them.

“You know,” Mike starts, hesitantly, looking at Archie—pointedly _not_ looking at Dave. Dave narrows his eyes. “Archie, you look a lot like the vic.”

“No,” Dave says, as Carly says, “It is a really good opportunity—“ and Archie, fucking hell, says blankly, “What?” 

“No,” he says again, quickly realizing Mike and Carly have already _talked about this_. “He’s not fucking doing it, Johns. He’d get eaten alive.”

“Do what?” Archie asks, raising his voice to be heard. “If it helps the investiga—“

“No, Archie, they’re being crazy,” Dave tells him, shaking his head. “We’ll figure something else out.”

“It’s not like we’d let anything happen, Cook,” Johns says. “He’d be undercover, not—“

“ _Oh_ ,” Archie says, soft and surprised, and glances back at the website. 

Dave slams his hand on the desk. “I said no, Johns.” There’s no fucking way they’re putting Archie through this—meeting guys who want to take him home and strip him down, use him like a fucking—just _no_. Let alone that one of those guys will most likely be _the murderer_. It’s the stupidest idea Johns has ever had—and this is _Johns_ , he’s had incredibly stupid ideas in the past. Dave has helped with half of them.

Archie cocks his head to the side though, and ignoring Dave’s protests entirely, asks, “Um, what would you label me as?” as he clicks on a button on the site—the sign up button, asking for age and type and—

Carly jumps. “You’re going to do it, David?”

Before Archie can say it, Dave starts, “Archie, no, man, it’s too dangerous, it’s not your scene—you’d be completely out of place. You’re this type of guys’ wet dream, Arch, this isn’t happening, it’s fucking—no way.”

Archie’s face turns red and he looks down for a second, but then he shrugs and looks up into Dave’s eyes. “I’m a detective too, you know. I can do it. I want to. And I don’t have to have your permission.”

Dave tightens his hands into fists as Archie turns back to the screen, and it’s all background noise as Johns tells him to pick _twink_ and Carly pushes Johns’ away, telling Archie to just hit bottom, instead—it’s awful; is sending shuddering little hints of rage throughout his body. Arch is too fucking _good_ for this sort of crap—it’s not meant for people like Archie, honest and sweet and kind, a heart so big he doesn’t understand, after five years of putting them away, that the people he’s signing up to go meet are _dangerous_ , will want to—to—

“Fine,” Dave snarls, and pushes through Johns to see what Archie and Carly are doing on the computer. “But I’m coming with you, and if one of them so much as fucking touches you—“

They spend the next two hours coming up with the identities they’ll need.

 

Dave throws the half-eaten piece of pizza back into the box it came out of, on the coffee table spread out in front of him and Archie. The best part about the movie Arch had picked out is the dog—the shit with the collar was pretty damn hilarious, he’ll admit it. They’re watching _Up_ , one of Arch’s favorites, in exchange for having pizza, one of Dave’s favorites. (It was the arrangement they had—one of them picks movie, the other food. So, generally its pizza and Disney or healthy food and an action flick or whatever game is on—or occasionally they’ll agree on something like Thai or Mexican and a new comedy or historical.) Anyway—they’re watching a movie Archie picked out, but Arch is barely paying attention, fidgeting and moving around, staring at points on the wall.

“What’s going on in there, Arch?” Dave asks, reaching over to poke him in the side. He yawns halfway there.

“I’m kind of—nervous. About tomorrow,” Archie admits, slowly.

Dave sighs, and throws an arm over Archie’s shoulders, tugging him in close for something comforting to hold on to. “Arch, you don’t have to do this.”

“No,” Archie says, pulling away roughly. “I want to. I just don’t really know how. I barely talk to _girls_ without freaking out, _Cook_.” It’s practically a whine at the end and Dave laughs, slips down to tug Archie back against him.

“Man, if you were gay, you wouldn’t have to talk, Arch. They’d be all over you like a fat kid on cake.”

Archie groans and pulls back again, then sighs and falls back into the pillows on his other side. “Maybe I should be. It’d all be easier that way.”

Dave raises an eyebrow, them hums. After a second, “I wonder what kind of guys we’d be into if we were gay.”

Archie chokes out a startled laugh, says, “ _What?_ ”

“You know, what type. You’d obviously be the woman in any relationship—“

Archie sputters out a, “I wouldn’t—!”

“I could go for it if they were cute,” Dave says, carefully, pondering, his fingers tapping the tight jean material on Archie’s knee.

Archie is quiet for a second before he laughs, a bit awkwardly, and says, “You definitely wouldn’t be my type.”

Scoffing, Dave says, “What? Rude, man, why not?”

“You’re too—“ Arch says, clearly struggling for the words, looking back at the television, “—everything.” Just as Dave is about to demand more than that, Archie adds, “Plus you hate church. Deal breaker.” He nods all fucking matter-of-fact and Dave snorts into his hands as he leans back on the couch.

“Okay, what’s your type?” Dave asks, moving along the conversation.

Archie takes a moment, and Dave uses the time to grab at a pillow and push it onto Archie’s lap, squirming around on the couch so that he can land with his feet hanging off the edge and his head comfortably resting above Archie’s knees, the movie still easy to see across the room. He yawns, as Archie finally says, slow and breathing quietly, “Someone really good.”

Dave almost, almost, wants to ask what he means. But he thinks he gets it. After a few minutes, he mumbles, “Yeah. I’d take that.”

 

The phone rings right in his ear, _I’m not going to write you a love song—_ , and Dave jerks up, flinging an arm up and knocking Archie over from where he’d, quite similarly to Dave, fallen asleep on the couch. The DVD menu from _Up_ is still on the television, and the pizza had never been put away. Missy is meowing loudly—and probably angrily, if Dave’s correct in his assumption that she’d sidled up in-between him and Arch at some point in the night, and his inopportune alarm clock had caused him to knock her off the couch.

“Aa-ah,” Archie says from above him, clearly still half-asleep, fumbling in his pocket for his cell phone, his eyes half-open and his mouth widening in a yawn. Dave rolls off the couch immediately, a little stirring of something he’s putting down to his disturbed regular morning routine in his belly.

“Good morning, Carly,” Archie says in-between yawns. He glances down to where Dave’s landed on his ass on the floor, the cat jumping on his stomach and swiping her tail across his face. (Which maybe he deserves.) “Cook is here?” Archie says, a questioning lilt in his voice, like he’s not sure _why_ Dave is there, but—

“ _No_ ,” Archie yells, and Dave knows exactly what Carly said. Stupid Irish—“Carly, what do you—“

Dave sits up, rubbing his ass where it feels bruised from the hard landing, and the cat slips into his lap where he can rub her between the ears for a moment, before she jumps up on the couch to get some attention from her favorite human. “Oh,” Archie says, still on the phone. “Um, how many? Oh my Gosh, how am I supposed to go on seven dates in one day— _Carly!_ ”

Dave glances to the coffee table where his and Archie’s guns are both lying, with their badges and all the other paraphernalia that comes from hunting down serial murderers on a regular basis. If somebody so much as touches Archie, he might be using several of those tonight. (He might enjoy it, seeing as how he’s still pissed this is even happening, fuck.)

Archie continues, still on the phone, “What? I was just going to—what’s wrong with my pants?”

Dave puts his head in his hands. 

* * *

David isn’t sure how _shopping_ counts as work when you’re a detective, not a, like, fashion designer or something. But Carly’s response to David walking into the station wearing a long-sleeved gray shirt and jeans instead of his typical white button-up and black slacks was, “David—I told you to wear something hot.”

Cook snorted behind him, laughing, and David flushed red, because—because all of his clothes look the same, pretty much, okay, except, like, his swim trunks, which he wasn’t wearing swim trunks to a _bar_ and—David just isn’t hot, sorry, there’s nothing he can _do_ about it. The best he has in his artillery is, like, cute. Even Carly knows that.

But anyway, Carly was all like, “No, boy, okay, we’re going to get you an outfit that _won’t_ ruin the whole undercover thing,” and dragged him out of the station before he could protest, “Carly, the background checks—” (To which she’d just said, “Johns and Cook can handle it,” and pushed him in a cab anyway.)

And now they’re at a store in the mall with pictures of half-naked guys on the walls and the whole place kind of smells like Carly’s husband’s cologne. Carly has like a million things piling up in her arms when she says, “David, go, changing room, come on,” and pushes him in. 

“Um—“ he says, not sure what he’s supposed to be doing. Like, trying on clothes, obviously, but _which ones_?

“Try the jeans first,” Carly says, shoving that pile over on the small bench, closing the curtain behind her, ignoring the fact that David needs to _change_.

“Carly,” he starts, and she blinks.

“Oh, do you want me to leave?” He nods.

“Oh,” she says, and then grabs a pair of jeans from the pile. “These first, and make sure you let me see before you change.”

“No,” she says, five minutes later as David turns around in front of her. “You’re a size smaller, what were those—thirty-two?” And then she does it again, and he’s wearing, like, smalls, definitely, when he’s totally a medium, okay.

“I kind of like the straight,” Carly muses. “But the skinny, definitely, for tonight. Alright, we’re getting them both.”

“What? Carly, they’re too _small_ in the first place—“

“Davey,” she sighs. “Trust me, they look good.” Then slyly she adds, “I bet Cook won’t be able to take his eyes off you the whole night.” 

David turns red and grabs the four shirts from her, before turning around and stalking back into the changing room, and just before he closes the curtains, adds, “Yeah, because he’ll be _laughing_!”

Carly just laughs at that though. It totally doesn’t make David feel any better about the jeans, and he decides he’s going to wear the dark blue cardigan Claudia got him for Christmas last year and totally hide the zipper part of the jeans. (Even at bars, people aren’t supposed to be able to see, like, bulge, it’s gross and stuff and he can’t _avoid_ it in these stupid too-small skinny jeans—although it maybe looks like a fold in the jeans, which is good, but still, David _knows_ and he’s going to be so embarrassed, like, all night.)

He looks at the shirts, and sees himself pouting in the mirror of the changing room. They’re all too small. Well, technically, he thinks they’re probably not, but he—he _likes_ his clothes when they’re baggy. He sighs and tugs off his long-sleeved shirt to pull on a bright red t-shirt instead.

“Aren’t we done yet?” David asks, an hour later, and he’s probably being mean, but he’s never liked shopping that much and Carly is, like, the Queen of shopping. She could probably win a reality show about it—like that one where people used to run around with a basket and tried to get as close to $200 as they could in like five minutes? Carly would totally win.

“You have to have the right cologne. It can’t be too manly—that stuff Johns’ uses? Disgusting. Don’t even get me started on Cook’s—oh, this, try it.” She says ‘try it’ like she means _try it_ , but she swipes her finger over the open bottle and grabs David’s wrist to rub it in without giving him time to say yes or no first. David sighs and brings his wrist up to face so he can smell it. It’s actually pretty nice though, like, sand and ocean water and seashells. 

“Good?” she asks, and even though, yeah, it is, David feels weird in the new jeans Carly hadn’t let him change out of, and his white shirt is too tight, and people keep _staring_ at him, and he says, “Carly, I don’t know if—“

She sighs. “Let’s buy this and go take a break, yeah? We’ll get ice cream.”

(Somehow, they end up buying David these weird boots that don’t look good at all instead.)

 

It’s barely an hour until the first scheduled date (oh, oh, Gosh, he’s really not sure about this anymore, not sure at _all_ ) when Cook texts him _Where are you? We need to plant the wire._ He and Carly drive straight to the Alegre, and David’s nerves jump when he realizes Cook is going to see him all... like, _he_ doesn’t think he looks any better than he does in his regular clothes, but Carly has been all, _ooh, sexy, check it out_ , and that’s, like, he doesn’t want Cook to look at him and see that he’d been trying and then totally _failed_ to look, all, like, sexy. 

He kind of wants to crawl under a rock at the thought. 

“Come on, heart stopper,” Carly says as they park her jeep in the gravel parking lot. David breathes to try and get up the nerve, and steps out of the vehicle. The bar is the same ugly gray color on the outside, but the neon lights above the metal doors reads _Alegre_ in bright purple. 

The gravel cracks under his new boots as he and Carly walk up to the concrete ramp, and he inwardly starts panicking as Carly pulls open the door and pushes David in. Technically the bar isn’t open yet, so there aren’t any customers around—just the bartender from the other night, and a different bouncer. There are five or six cops, though, Jason and Brooke are doing something with a package of swabs and evidence bags on the bar, and Johns is looking up from where he was talking to Cook, waving at them before opening his mouth wide, saying something to David. 

David isn’t paying attention to Johns though. Cook is—Cook is _staring_ at him, eyes wide and mouth parted, and he—David almost wants to say _my eyes are up here, Cook_ , because Cook is—is—

“What do you think?” David asks, nervous and suddenly hopeful that Cook might think he looks _good_.

Johns doesn’t let Cook answer though, holding up a wire. “Carly, his shirt’s too tight; the wire’s going to be too obvious.”

Carly bites her lip, then smiles, “Oops? We should have gotten the one size larger after all, David.”

Cook coughs, clearing his throat, and uses his arms to push himself up over the bar, his jeans—appropriately manly and baggy and not clingy, like David wished his were—sliding across the surface before his cowboy boot-clad fleet land on the tiled floor. “Your sweater’s in my car, Arch,” he says, and before David knows what’s happened, Cook is walking out the door, presumably to go get him his—his sweater?

David fidgets with the hem of his t-shirt until Cook comes back in, grinning, and passes David his dark blue cardigan. “Thanks,” David says, and pulls his shirt up so that Johns can tape the wire to his side, where it won’t be so obvious with the extra material guarding it. Cook turns around, and heads back around the bar, grabbing a shot glass and pouring something into it.

Cook must see the look David sends him, because he lifts his hands and says, “Its coke, Arch.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Carly pipes up, once David’s allowed to pull back down his shirt, the wire cold against his skin, and is tugging on his cardigan. “Is he hot or what?”

Cook grins, this big huge one (and its almost fake, David thinks, wanting to cringe) and says, “Fuck, man, I didn’t recognize you. You’re all grown up.” David flushes despite it not being—exactly, what he wanted. 

“Alright,” the bartender from before says, coming up close. “I’m sorry—I—wow,” he says, stopping in his tracks as David turns around and looks at him. “Don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,” he says, his eyes doing the same thing Cook’s had done before, sliding up and down David’s torso. 

It makes him nervously shuffle his feet, and he’s thankful when Cook says, “Hey,” roughly, from behind them.

“Right,” the bartender says, shaking his head. “Bar’s opening in a few minutes.”

Johns claps his hands together, says, “Alright, we’ll be in the van. Cook, you’re at the bar—you’re sure you remember how to mix drinks?” Cook rolls his eyes, and David remembers that Cook worked as a bartender through college. “And Archie—well, yeah, no, Carly did all the work for you. Go sit and wait for them to come to you,” Johns finishes. He makes it sound like they’re fishing or something, David thinks miserably, as he sits down at the bar where Johns had told all of the— _nine_ —guys who’d contacted him on that site thinking it was Archie they were talking to, not, um, Johns, that he’d meet them inside the Alegre.

They have a date set up every half-an-hour, just long enough for them to order a drink so Cook can get their DNA and Archie can say he’s, um, not interested. He thinks that should be easy enough, because he really _isn’t_ even close to being interested. Cook is standing four feet away, behind the bar, dark jeans matching the button-down really, um, nicely, with the buttons all—the top four aren’t even, um, buttoned. David can see some of Cook’s dark chest hair peeking out, and his hands are all, running down some sort of bottle with condensation on the side that he’s pouring into a glass, touching lightly, gently, and it’s just—

David’s definitely not interested in anyone else.

Cook pushes the glass over to David a moment later as people start pushing in through the entrance doors, beginning to sit down at the tables and bar. The glass is tall, and full of this orangey red liquid, and has, um, a lemon and David thinks that’s a celery stick that Cook put in it. 

“I don’t drink,” David says blankly.

Cook shrugs, “It’s a virgin.” Then he adds, like David doesn’t know, “That means no alcohol,” and leaves when a guy sits a few chairs down and says, “Whiskey, my man.”

David sniffs the drink, and it doesn’t _smell_ like alcohol, just like tomatoes, so he takes a sip and it’s really not that bad. It actually tastes like tomato juice, and he kind of wants to eat the celery. He’d ended up skipping lunch earlier, shopping with Carly instead. Before he can pull it out and start to eat it though, a man sits down in the chair next to him, kind of muscular but not, like, biker muscular, more like swimmer muscular, and with a buzz cut, and a really, um, purple silk shirt on.

He smiles and says, “I’m Derek. You’re David, right?”

David just nods, and the night starts up.

 

“So, I’m nervous as hell, but I call them up and—what do you know, answering machine,” Javier says, gesturing with his hands as he tells David the story. It’s the forth date of the night, and David’s on his second Bloody Mary already—no alcohol though. Which would probably make all of the dates a lot easier to handle. (The second guy asked David if he wanted to “get out of here” before even sitting down, oh my Gosh, and Cook had had to intervene, all like, “Two shots on the house,” in order to get his DNA before David was all, “No, I don’t think so.”) Javier continues talking, “So I say, Mom, Dad, … I’m gay!”

He laughs kind of, like, giggling? and looks at David expectantly. “What about you? How’d you come out?”

David opens his mouth, “Oh, um, I—I think they just knew. You know. Obvious.”

“Oh,” Javier nods. “Yeah, sometimes parents know before we do.”

He smiles, and David totally knows that smile means he wants to ask David something, so before he can, David spits out, “This was a nice conversation, but, um, I think—I think I’m not—we’re not compatible. Sorry.”

He flinches through it, but Javier just sighs and drinks the rest of his martini. “And you were cute too,” he says, before getting up. “Nice to meet you anyway, David.”

It’s a good thing most people don’t seem to really be _expecting_ to hit it off with guys they met (sort of met) online, David thinks. Cook leans over, stealing the glass and swabbing it around the rim before putting it in the bag labeled _Javier Munez_. “How’s it going?” he asks, his knuckles white.

David can’t help the whine that falls out of his mouth, “Cooooooook,” and almost puts his head on the bar, already tired, only Cook pushes out his arms to block him, and he ends up, like, with his mouth hitting Cook’s _hand_ , and— He jerks, and Cook snaps his arm back. 

“I’ve got, uh, guys to—“ Cook says, motioning at the people crowding the bar. 

“Yeah,” David says, morose, and tries not to watch as Cook goes over to pour some guys their drinks, and tries to ignore it when one of them says, “You’re too hot to be behind the bar all night,” and Cook just laughs. 

He reminds himself that Cook isn’t gay anyway, doesn’t like guys at all, romantically _or_ sexually, and drinks the rest of his tomato-flavored, non-alcoholic cocktail.

* * *

Dave doesn’t know how he fucking missed it. It’s glaringly obvious, now that it’s clicked in his head. Every time he wakes up after falling asleep at Arch’s place, or vice-versa, and that feeling in his gut twists into something else—when he leans on Archie, popping his personal space bubble like it doesn’t even exist (and for Dave it _doesn’t_ , not anymore, hasn’t for three years—). When they jog down to the park, Dublin on his leash, and Dave always tries to race Arch to the park, but settles for tackling him once he’s there, because there’s no way he can win—and the flirting—oh, fuck, he can’t think about it.

He’s in love with Archie.

When in the _fuck_ had that even fucking happened? When they met five years previous, Archie fucking tackling the guy Dave was supposed to be after—they weren’t even partners for another seven months. Maybe it was _then_ , sitting in a car together every night, responding to thefts at gas stations and domestic violence calls—maybe it was that day he found Dublin, pawing at a trashcan outside the Watson’s apartment for the third time, so small and underfed he could see the pup’s bones through his ragged, dirty coat and he’d looked at Archie, just fucking _looked_ at him, and Archie had said, “He—he looks malnourished. Pet cruelty? It’s our—it’s our responsibility to protect and serve for animals too—” and they spent half-an-hour getting the dog to come close enough that Dave could _pick him up_ , too terrified of being hit, beaten or worse. It was probably after that though, when they were promoted, together, to homicide detectives, a long-contemplated decision that Sergeant Fuller finally decided to confirm. Archie, who hated being touched, always flinched when Dave put his arm around his shoulders, had jumped up and wrapped his arms around Dave’s neck, hot air against his throat, “They’re letting us stay together!” making the grip of his arms all the tighter around Dave.

He doesn’t get—he doesn’t get how he didn’t _know_.

And now he’s good and fucked, because he fucking figured it out the second Archie walked in the bar, too-tight jeans riding low on too-slim hips, and that fucking white t-shirt—just a fucking regular t-shirt, clinging to all the right places, and Dave couldn’t _breathe_. Arch’s half-excited, half-nervous smile and the way his eyelashes fluttered when he looked up, asking, “What do you think?” like he didn’t fucking very well _know_ that Dave wanted to take him home and push him down on the bed, make him gasp and groan until he couldn’t say anything, not even his _name_ —

But it was _Archie_. Of course he didn’t fucking know.

And now Dave _does_. He’s royally fucked, Jesus Christ.

“You know,” Carter—Cameron? Cale? C-something—says, sidling up to Archie, putting an arm around his back, the fingers, Dave can imagine, playing with the ends of his fucking cardigan, like they have any fucking business being that damn close to Archie, “you look a lot like that guy who died a few days ago.”

Dave freezes where he’s stirring a martini.

“What?” Archie says, blinking up softly, playing up the part perfectly.

“You do. He was kind of a small guy—cute, but pulled off sexy like he was born to it. Just like you, actually.” His fingers are touching Archie’s neck now. Dave forces a smile as he hands another guy his drink, careful to not make it obvious that he’s listening. He can feel his gun tucked in at his leg, jeans loose to hide the shape from the bar patrons. 

“You knew him?” Archie asks.

“Sort of. I think—I think I was the last guy he talked to before he died,” the guy says, and Dave can _see_ Archie shiver against the touch on his neck. If the bastard doesn’t take his fucking hands off of Arch in the next ten seconds, Dave is going to do something he may or may not regret afterwards. “We had a date, met him the same way I did you, on men for men dot com? But the date didn’t go so well,” he says, rolling his eyes. “He forgot to take off his wedding ring. I don’t hook up with married guys.”

“That’s—oh,” Archie says, laughing, and maybe the guy there can’t tell, but Dave knows it’s his fake laugh, his polite _oh-my-Gosh-get-me-out-of-here_ laugh.

“I didn’t mean to creep you out,” the guy adds a second later. “Did I?”

Archie hesitates, but says, “Maybe a little.” 

The guy leaves soon after—go figure, telling somebody they look like a dead guy isn’t great for the date—and Dave makes sure to be extra careful swabbing his cup for DNA.

Four men later, two of whom weren’t pre-ordered through gay dating sites—and fuck, Dave wanted to just, put his arms around Archie and pull him in close, protect him from roaming eyes and strolling hands, even as Arch just smiled, as fucking cute as possible, and played his part to the finish—the bar is closing. Archie looks like he’s about to fall asleep on the counter, so Dave delegates Johns the evidence bags so that they can get processed through the night, and puts himself on ‘get Archie to the apartment safe’ duty.

“Cook?” Archie asks, yawning, as Dave puts an arm around his waist, steering him towards the doors. The bar is mostly empty now.

“Yeah?” Dave responds, tugging his car keys out of his pocket as they walk out.

“I left my car at the station,” Archie says, slowly. “Can I get a ride?”

Dave raises an eyebrow. “Pretty sure we were always planning on taking mine, Arch. Gas is not exactly cheap—”

“Um?” Archie says, half a question, like he’s confused, and Dave realizes maybe he doesn’t realize he’s being kidnapped for the night.

“Arch, you’re staying at my place,” Dave says, impassively. “No fucking way you’re going home alone when one of those guys you talked to tonight has a very nice probability of being our murder suspect.”

“Oh,” Archie says, and as soon as they jump into Dave’s ford, he leans his head against the window, eyes half-closed. Dave shakes his head and leans over, reaching with a hand to pull at Archie’s seat belt. Archie seems to watch his hands as he fiddles with the gray belt, until it plugs in with a snap. He turns his head back to the window, muttering a soft, “Thank you.”

Dave swallows and buckles his own seat belt in.

 

“You never,” Archie yawns, covering his mouth with a hand belatedly as he walks into Dave’s apartment, “told me I was staying with you tonight.” 

His shirt is riding up just enough that Dave can see a sliver of skin, smooth and warm, like it’s—shit. Dave turns around, shrugs. “You want me to put something on?”

Archie sleepily contemplates it for a moment, and then nods and slips down onto the black, leather couch across from the large TV set, kicking his boots off and peeling down the socks too, stuffing them inside the boots. After a minute, he makes a face and Dave realizes he’s staring. “What?” he asks, finally.

Archie sighs, and then looks up at him with a hopeful expression, “Do you have a pair of sweats I could borrow? These jeans are like, too tight to sleep in.” 

Dave nods and turns around, using a hand to rub at his temple. This whole—thing, with suddenly being attracted—okay, fuck, more than attracted—to Archie needs to _stop_ before he goes crazy and ends up doing something stupid, so fucking stupid. He digs through his drawers until he finds a pair of shorts and shirt that are mostly too small for him—he thinks, he hasn’t worn them in ages—and when he comes back out into the living room, he drops them both on top of Arch’s head on the couch.

Archie just blinks, and tugs the shorts off his head, and grabs the shirt from where it landed on the seat next to him. “Okay, um,” he says, “be right back!” And he ducks his way over to the bathroom as Dave throws himself down on the couch. Dori, the blue fish with the memory issues is on the DVD menu, singing _just keep swimming, just keep swimming_. 

Yeah, he can do that.

 

“Feel free,” Dave says, gesturing at his bed. It’s not like Archie hasn’t crashed on it before—hell, they’ve crashed on it _together_ before, and again, he’s wondering how the fuck he didn’t figure out the whole—thing—before tonight, but he’s got a nervous twitch of anticipation in his spine, coiling down to settle in the bottom of his stomach, jumping every few moments.

Archie doesn’t protest, like he typically does, just face plants into the black comforters and white pillows, his body bouncing at the collision. 

“Hey,” Dave says, tugging the comforter from underneath Arch and pulling it over his curled body, feet and all. “You’ll be alright in here?”

Archie cracks open his eyes, and after a moment where he glances from Cook to the extra space on the bed, he nods and murmurs, “Yeah, I’ve got—lots of space. Thank you, Cook.”

Dave can’t help himself when he ruffles Archie’s hair, thumb slipping down to touch his cheek before he pulls it back. “Goodnight, Arch.”

 

Archie smiles brightly in the morning, pushing a plate with toast and cut pieces of apple in front of Dave where’s he’s sleeping on the couch. He glares at it, wishing it would magically morph into bacon and eggs. Archie adds a glass of milk. Dave groans and sits up, looking at Archie sadly.

“This is healthy!” Arch says, and grabs one of the cut slices of apple, nibbling on it. “And it tastes good.”

“I hate you,” Dave says, and takes a bite of the toast.

They get in Dave’s ford about half-an-hour later, and head to the station. Dave keeps his hands gripped to the steering wheel, but Archie’s fingers tap a rhythm out against his jeans—the same ones from yesterday after he realized he couldn’t wear Dave’s old basketball shorts to work—and he hums along with the music from the radio. _Just a small-town girl, livin’ in a lonely world, she took the midnight train, going anywhere._ Dave’s not sure why the song is on the radio, thinks it’s the new cover by some show choir on TV, but he knows the words by heart, and sings along, until he and Archie are singing as loudly as they can in the car. He almost doesn’t hear his cell phone start ringing, and regrets it sadly when Archie turns off the radio to answer it.

“David Archuleta, homicide—“ Arch starts, automatically letting whoever’s calling that it’s not actually David Cook they’re speaking to. Dave almost laughs at the way Arch’s face goes from serious to wide-eyed disbelief, and yells, “Carly, stop it!” (Okay, so he does laugh, whatever, the smack Archie gives his shoulder barely even stings.)

“What about DNA?” Archie asks through the phone, and he nods until he says, “Oh, okay.”

They hang up, and Dave glances at him before putting his eyes back on the road. “What is it?”

“None of the DNA came back positive,” Archie says, sighing, and not looking at Dave right away.

“What?” David says loudly, and hits the back of his head against the headrest. “Man, not even the creepy one?”

Archie looks at him pointedly, and says, “No.”

“Great,” Dave says, drawing the word out. He turns on the road, following a blue jeep into the stations parking lot.

“Well, we’re giving the bar another shot,” Archie says, unbuckling himself and opening the passenger door.

“ _What?_ ” Dave says, aghast. “No, man, it was dangerous enough the first time.”

“Nothing even happened,” Archie points out, and shuts the door. Dave has to quickly climb out and lock the car before slamming the door and jogging up after Archie.

“I’m sorry, what part of that one guy _grabbing your ass_ counts as nothing? Or the creep who told you you looked like a dead guy? I wanted to kick his fucking—“

“Okay, so he was weird! But, like, that stuff is what happens in bars! I said I’d do it so I’ll finish it too, gosh, Cook, what’s wrong? You wouldn’t be, all, like, trying to get out of it if you were the one in the dangerous position.”Archie pulls open the double doors and walks through them. He waves at Brooke at the front desk as he bypasses her and sneaks through to get to their desks in one of the further back areas. 

“Not the point, man,” Dave says, and then winces when Archie stops to a stand-still and looks up at him incredulously. 

“ _Not the point_ , Cook? As in, you can do dangerous stuff, but I can’t?”

Dave back peddles. “That’s not what I meant. I mean that I just don’t like my partner being in danger!”

“Or that I can’t handle the danger?” Archie asks, point-blank.

“That’s—that’s not what I said,” Dave says.

They stand in silence for a moment, before Archie shakes his head, “Yes, it is.”

“Hey, mates,” Johns says, ambling over to them with a sigh. “No DNA matches. Carly called you, yeah? We’re doing the same thing as last night one more time. I’ve got some guys looking into a few other things here, but I think this is still our best chance.”

“Yeah,” Archie says. “I’m okay with that.” Cook has no choice but to agree, and tries to ignore the angry feeling in his gut as David turns his back to him and walks to his desk.

* * *

David put on the wire outside in the van where Johns, Carly, Jason and Kristy are all sitting, videos and sound of the inside of the bar up for their viewing needs. Instead of sitting up at the bar, right next to Cook, he sat down at a table a few feet away. He doesn’t want to deal with Cook right now—Cook, who doesn’t think he’s capable enough to protect himself against some guy who had a few too many drinks. He went through the same training as Cook, and passed with better grades, so—

The first date is kind of normal, and the second is kind of weird, but whatever, it’s fine. (It’s just a little awkward to be told he looks, um, anyway—) The bartender—not Cook, the _real_ bartender, whose been managing the other side of the bar since yesterday in order for Cook to have access to the glasses David’s dates leave behind them—has come over twice, smiling nicely and asking if David’s okay. (It’s better than Cook, whose basically been ignoring his existence all night except to come steal glasses when the dates are over.)

It’s the sixth date, around eleven, that starts sending a paranoid shiver down his back, because it isn’t a scheduled date, and the guy doesn’t sit down at the table, just—goes straight in, and David can’t even think of way to get out of it.

“Come on,” the man says, grinning, and he wraps his hand—rough and dry, calloused from what David assumes is a job with machinery and heavy lifting, construction or something industrial, maybe?—around David’s wrist, easily encasing it in his grip as he pulls David up from the table, “dance with me.”

He shouldn’t—should stay safely settled at the table where Cook can see him from the bar—but the angry tightness of the fingers wrapped around his wrist persuade him to nod anyway, and he takes the necessary steps out into the dance floor, dark with all the moving bodies—not all of them even men, surprisingly, although David can barely tell except when the bright orange or red lights flash out and light everyone up. He silently regrets taking off his coat as the man slips a heavy hand down his side, settling it on his hip as he pulls him in close, flush against his body for the loud, jerky dancing. The music seems angry—more yelling than singing, even if the loud beat of drums and the base is weaving its way into everyone’s hips, making them move and dance, too close for David, not close enough for anyone else.

“You’re gorgeous, been watching you turn lesser men down all night,” the man says, his fingers slithering down David’s back, making him want to close his eyes and step away, back to—back to _Cook_. He forces himself to stay still. He’s a _detective_ , for Goodness sake, if he can’t just pretend to be into a _dance_ , then he never should have said he’d do this in the first place, should have just been an accountant like his father had always said he should have. “I’m thinking of what you’d look like spread out in the back of my jeep,” the man continues, and there’s something in the tone that makes David freeze, makes him tighten his fists. 

“I’d like to hear you scream,” the man finally adds, dipping his head so that he’s talking right into David’s ear, blowing hot air on his neck. “What do you think, pretty boy, wanna’ scream for me? Fight me for it?”

David’s had enough, takes a step back, says, “No, I don’t think I—“

The man snaps him back though, yanks on his arm hard enough that David lets out a noise. The music is too loud for anyone to have heard though, and bodies are pushing at him from every which way as the man pulls him closer, pushing a hand back to grab his butt. David jumps and tries to twist, difficult with his arm being held hard enough to bruise through the material of his shirt. Finally, he says, “Gosh, let _go_!” and it’s loud enough that someone nearby turns and says, “Hey—” before suddenly the man releases his grip and stumbles backwards, and that’s—that’s _Cook_.

“Think the guy said _let go_ ,” Cook says, and David shakes at the sound of rage in it, staring with wide eyes through the dark ever-changing lights at his partner’s back. The man—the suspect, now, David thinks—pulls his fist up and slams it into Cook’s face, before the lights flash again and David can’t see them or what they’re doing. It’s kind of—it’s horrifying, the way the lights get darker right then, and the music picks up, louder and angrier than ever.

“Cook!” David yells, and everyone around them is in-between dancing, yelling and—and cheering—as he tries to find them. 

“Oh, Gosh,” he says, pushing at a man until he trips and falls forward, barely catching himself in time to catch the red flicker of light—and sees the suspect with his arms around Cook’s neck, being slammed into the back wall as Cook struggles to plant his feet and pull out of the impossibly strong grip.

“Stop!” David tries yelling, but isn’t heard, and he ducks in order to get through three people blocking him from the fight, and when he finally does, the lights flashing around him, he pulls his hand back and slams it into the suspect’s stomach as hard as he can. It doesn’t do much—he’s maybe one-hundred and forty pounds whereas this man looks _two_ -hundred and forty, but it’s enough that he loosens his grip on Cook. Cook thrusts his elbow back and it knocks the wind out of the suspect, forcing him to double over long enough that David can pull the pair of handcuffs out of Cook’s pocket and push against a girl to grab his hand and slip one of them on. Cook is breathing harshly as he grabs the suspect on the other side, because he’s struggling and dangerous and David can’t detain him on his own. 

Cook yells, “On your fucking knees!” and pushes the man down at the same time that there’s a loud breaking noise from the southeast entrance and the music is abruptly turned off, and people start to yell as the regular bright lights replace the strobe lights. David can see Johns and Carly, wearing the black LAPD bullet-proof vests, holding their guns down, and Kristy and Jason are on the other side of the club, looking much the same. 

“Over here,” he says, too quiet for them to hear, but as he waves, he knows that Johns sees him, gives the signal and starts to make his way over as people try to get past him, out of the club. He turns back to Cook, to the bloody cut on his lip that’s smeared on his chin and hand. He looks down—can see the imprint of his gun in the holster on his ankle. Of course he’d rather have been nearly throttled to death than pull a gun in a crowd, but—

David closes his eyes, and slowly, breathes.

 

David flinches when Cook slams his fist on the table. Johns is in the interrogation room with him and the guy from earlier—Matthew Grayson. Carly has an arm around David as they watch through the two-way mirror, even though he’s shrugged her off twice already. The worst thing wasn’t—

It’s not that the guy did anything, or that he tried to, or—it’s that Cook was _right_. It was dangerous, and David had done it anyway, and he’d been stupid and let himself get pulled away from Cook because, because he thought it would be fine. He thought he could handle it! But that was just—just pipe dreaming, apparently. He couldn’t handle it, and Cook had had to jump in and save him, like—like some poor damsel in distress from a Disney movie. 

What kind of cop was he? What sort of detective could protect other people when he couldn’t even—?

“Answer the question!” Cook yells, his voice coming crackling through the speakers, together with another slam of his fist on the table. Johns looks about ready to grab Cook and drag him out of the room, and Matthew, as big and tough as he was at the club, is practically cowering.

“I was at home, I told you! Ask my wife! She’ll tell you!” the man says again, loudly, nervous and fidgeting—David believes him, actually. Cook does too. David can tell from the way he looks like he wants to scream, looks like he wants to hit the walls until his knuckles are all bruised and bloody. This—this isn’t the guy.

It was all for nothing, even after—

David never should have agreed to this stupid idea in the first place.

 

David takes his own car for the first time in two days. Cook gives him a nervous sort of “Will you be okay?” look as he leaves the precinct, but David just smiles and takes off anyway. He’s tired, and he needs to feed Missy, and he doesn’t really… want to be with Cook, right now. It’s a weird feeling. He can’t really remember the last time he intentionally avoided Cook. He loves Cook, they spend incredible amounts of time together, actually, and even ignoring David’s big stupid whatever, crush, Cook is—Cook is David’s best friend (and he doesn’t usually like handing titles like that out, because he has lots of friends, Johns and Carly and Brooke and Benton, but it’s _Cook_ , there’s no doubt that Cook is more important than anyone else). But right now, he can’t deal with him, with his _let me protect you_ and _here, sleep on the couch with me_ or _I got your favorite! Thai! Don’t you love me?_ quirks, because, because he just _can’t_.

He goes home, feeds his cat and collapses on his bed. 

* * *

“Hey, Cook,” Archie says, quietly, from his desk. Dave looks up at Archie’s hesitant smile, already half-apologizing for—for nothing, really. Dave should be the one apologizing. He’s the one that got completely out of line yesterday, the day before it, and every fucking day before that. 

“Yeah, Archie?”

He doesn’t though, doesn’t apologize—he can’t, because he knows he’ll cross that line again, and again, and again. He can’t apologize for something he knows he’ll keep doing. That’d be—worse, maybe. And there’s no way he can stop doing it. Protecting Archie—

“Carly just sent me a text. We’re supposed to go meet her in lab three. Are you coming?”

There’s nothing else as important.

Dave nods, and grins, “Yeah, let’s go catch a murderer.”

Archie smiles, which is good enough for him.

 

“Hey guys,” Carly says, taking off her gloves when they approach lab three. The lab technician, Paul, looks up and smiles at them both. It’s mad, out of the blue, and even though Dave’s gotten this—tight, angry feeling before, with this guy, he’s just now realizing that it’s _jealousy_. He’s _jealous_ that the _lab tech_ is smiling at Archie. Jesus, what the fuck?

“Hi Carly,” Archie says, not distracted at all by the added moment of epiphany Dave is having to deal with. Then he adds, “Benton! I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yeah, been busy in here,” Paul says, shrugging. “We’ll have to do lunch when it quiets down. As for your DNA results, no matches, sorry.”

“Couldn’t you have just told Archie that over the phone?” Dave asks, disgruntled, and folding his arms over his chest. He ignores the half-glare Archie directs at him, and concentrates on Carly rolling her eyes. 

“There’s more. I was looking at some stuff just before I got Benton’s text about the DNA, and we have might have a problem. Or a break,” she says, and crosses her arms to mirror David. “The husband? Put in an insurance claim for his husband’s inheritance. An inheritance that he could only receive upon the natural, accidental or homicidal death of Anthony Eakes. If it was a divorce, suicide, whatever—Garrett wouldn’t get a thing.”

“How much is the inheritance?” Dave asks, looking at her pointedly.

“Five-hundred thousand dollars.”

Dave whistles, and drops his arm to rub at his forehead with a hand, thinking. “The guy has an airtight alibi. No way he was there to kill our vic, Carls.”

“An accomplice,” Archie says, quietly, looking up at Dave.

“What?” Dave looks back at Archie, waiting for the coming-explanation.

“I was thinking—it’s sad, isn’t it? That someone so religious about testing his glucose levels would have let them get so high. Not all diabetics check that so seriously—but he did, we know he did, the evidence was all there. That doesn’t make _sense_ , Cook, so maybe—maybe the husband—maybe his insulin distributor was tampered with, so he thought his levels were low when they weren’t. The bouncer said he was drunk when he left the club, but what if he wasn’t drunk—what if he’d taken too much insulin?”

Dave jumps in and says, “And an accomplice to make it look like a hate crime or rape rather than a get-rich-quick scheme when he stumbled out into the parking lot to his death, securing the husband’s alibi—two birds, one stone. Fuck.” 

Dave grins at Archie until Carly says, “Stop reveling in it. Fingerprints, go, check.”

He might slap Paul’s shoulder a little rougher than is strictly necessary when he and Archie say goodbye and leave the lab.

 

Of course, when they go to check the insulin pump, they don’t find a goddamn thing.

“What?” Dave groans, and resists slamming his head against the counter when the distributor comes back clean. “Jesus fucking Christ, can’t we get a break here?”

Archie hits him in the arm as he says, “Cook, don’t talk like that! And besides, this _is_ a break.”

“How is it a break? There are no—oh, wait, where are—”

“Anthony’s fingerprints should be on this, at least. Somebody wiped it down, Cook.” Archie looks at him, imploring, and Dave’s response catches in his throat. It takes a moment for Archie to falter and say, “Cook?”

Dave nods. “Yeah—yeah. That’s—somebody was definitely at the club then. They waited for him to dose up too much insulin and then followed him out.”

“Back to the club,” Archie says, quietly, half-sighing, and directing his gaze to the counter as starts to take his gloves off. 

Dave catches his hand, and pulls it up, closer to himself, making Archie look up at his face in surprise. Dave lets his eyes drift from Archie’s face though, to the hand now in his grip, and slowly, he pulls the glove down and off Archie’s hand, his fingertips grazing against Archie’s bare wrist for just—just a moment—

“You don’t have to go again,” Dave says, roughly, dropping Archie’s hand.

Then— _shit_ , Dave thinks, and winces as Archie pulls his hand back like he’s been slapped. 

“I’m not _scared_ , Cook,” Archie says, after a moment. “I’m just tired of that sort of environment. And I know—“

“Hey, guys!” a loud voice comes from the doorway, and Dave jerks, turning to see Johns poking his head through. “Carls and I are doing that new Ethiopian place tonight after shift. You comin’?”

Archie smiles widely and says, “Yes!” before pushing past Dave. Dave says something similar, because he knows he’s agreed to go to dinner, but in reality, he’s resisting the urge to punch Johns. Whatever Archie was saying—whatever it was, he can tell just looking at his face, the conversation is over.

 

Dave drives to the bar, although there are no impromptu singing sessions with the radio this time. Archie is tapping his fingers on his knee, same old black slacks he always wears to work when Carly hasn’t got her fangs in him. Dave still has to turn away from the sight of him, head upturned to stare out the window, neck elongated and shirt low enough to show it off. He still doesn’t get how he didn’t know. How the fuck could he have not known?

It’s not like it’s just the way Carly had dressed him up. That—that made Dave look, really _look_ , but it had all been there before, every goddamn fucking feeling, and he’d never noticed. What kind of detective does that make him?

They have to wait for the bouncer to open the door, despite it being around noon, and the bar not being open to patrons. Dave looks at the tall man, and damn, he doesn’t remember the bouncer’s name, before waving Archie off to go talk to the bartender while he tries to get something new out of the big doorman. “We were told a blonde guy was flirting with Anthony Eakes the day he was murdered—you seen that guy since then?”

The bouncer shrugs, and hefts up a heavy box that makes clanking noises as he does, “Can’t say that I have. I don’t really remember him in the first place though. A blonde, huh?”

Dave nods and crosses his arms. “And you don’t remember anyone else being around?” He gets the same shrug, and lets out a breath, tired already, and then asks, “What about this guy? You ever seen him in here?” while holding up a picture of Garrett, the victim’s husband. 

The bouncer squints, and then nods. “Yeah, yeah, I think I have a few times. Always sits at the bar.” Then he grins, and cocks his head up to direct Dave to look at something behind him, “Flirts with George just like your partner there, if you know what I mean.”

Dave frowns and turns around, slowly, not sure what he’s supposed to be looking for—Archie, flirting, haha, funny. Except that’s—that’s exactly what’s happening, and Dave barely gets five feet closer to his partner before he stops altogether, listening to Arch, quiet and nervous and so _fucking sweet_ , say, “So—um, this week has been kind of eventful, but I never really, um, got a chance to—experience anything, if—if you know, er, what I mean?”

Dave clinches his fist as he watches the bartender grin and lean over, fucking—fucking _kissing_ Archie on the neck, while Arch holds on to him tightly, face turning a bright shade of pink or red or purple, Dave doesn’t even know, he’s concentrating on walking over quickly enough to pull Archie back and stop that bartender from ever fucking touching him again—

“Call me. We can fix that,” is what the bartender says, when he pulls back before Dave can get there and rip him off himself. 

Archie looks up and smiles hugely at Dave, like— _Look what I did, Cook, aren’t you proud?_

Dave thinks, as he grabs Archie by the arm and pulls him out of the bar, that he needs to get this whole jealousy thing under control before he does something distinctly un-detective-like. As soon as they’re out of the door, he lets go, Archie pulling back and furrowing his eyebrows as if he’s confused, and even though, yeah, he has that right, he can fucking flirt with whoever he wants. He clearly doesn’t _know_ Dave’s in love with him, but Dave can’t help but harshly ask, “What the fuck was that?”

“Cook—“ Archie tries.

“You can’t go around making out with potential suspects!” Dave yells, roughly pulling at his car door when they reach it in the parking lot. “What the hell were you doing?”

“Getting DNA!” Archie yells back, pulling open his door. “Seriously, stop freaking out and swab my neck before it disappears! You have swabs in here, right?” Dave stares, deflating somewhat as Archie tilts his head, the area of his neck that the bartender had kissed out in the open, for Dave to see and take DNA from. Obviously. 

He closes his eyes and mutters, “Yeah,” before grabbing his case from the backseat.

“Why’d you think it was the bartender?” Dave asks, gently sliding a cotton swab across Archie’s neck, a few moments later.

Archie huffs, and says, “He was wearing gloves, and there was a slit in the left one, between the index finger the thumb, plus I could see, like, a scab? So it kind of clicked. That’s how the DNA got on the knife. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Dave says, and moves back into his seat, putting the swab in a clean evidence bag, labeling it _George Dokovic, Bartender_. “Not to mention that apparently he’s been having an affair with the husband for a while.”

Archie gives him a surprised look, and Dave shrugs. “The pieces are falling together.”

* * *

David smiles when he sees the small restaurant ahead of them. It’s not that far from the station, so he and the others all decided to walk instead of drive and waste the gas. (Well, he and Carly decided to walk—Johns and Cook had to be persuaded with lots of _please please please_.) David likes Thai food, usually, but he’s been wanting to go to this new Ethiopian place for weeks and Cook kept finding ways to stop him. (Cook’s not a fan of anything but pizza, steak and barbecues. And fast food.)

The hostess sees them and seats them fast and automatically, despite the fact that other people are waiting. David think she figured out that they’re cops, and feels a little guilty, except not really, because he’s hungry and waiting wouldn’t be conducive to being, um, not hungry, so.

“Think DNA’ll be back by the time we finish stuffing ourselves?” Johns asks, sitting down next to Cook and across from Carly, leaving David to sit on the other side of the table next to Carly and across from Cook, who grins at him.

“I don’t think so,” Cook says, leaning back, taking the menu with him. “Somebody help translate this stuff. I don’t want grass or whatever—“

“They don’t serve grass, Gosh, Cook, look—“ and they end up fighting over the menu for the next five minutes until David finally just orders for Cook.

“I have to admit,” Carly says, half-an-hour later, as they all push around the food on their plates, nearly finished—and David liked it, but Cook is still giving his food weird looks, so he’s not sure everyone did—“I’m glad this case looks like it might be over tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” David says, and looks up at Cook, who stares back at him, smiling a little.

Cook leans forward, putting his hands together, “This case had me on my toes, I’ll admit it too. I was worried about you, Arch,” he says, and is looking straight at David, still, even though there are four of them at the table, and David can’t look away anyway. “You’re important to me.”

David nods and smiles and finishes eating, trying to ignore the way his fingers tremble. 

Walking back to the station, David touches Cook’s arm, and says, quietly, “You’re important to me too,” he adds, a few seconds later, “Thank you.”

 

In completely out-of-character fashion, the next day, Cook actually _hugs_ Benton when he says, “Hey, the DNA came back positive this time!” (Cook’s never _really_ got along with Benton? It’s totally weird, because Benton is really nice, and super cool and fun, and he likes a lot of the same things as Cook? David’s stopped trying to figure it out, anyway.)

The interview goes down quickly and easily, the bartender being pushed down into a chair. Cook’s barely asked a question before he’s spilling the whole story—how he and Garrett have been having an affair for nearly seven months, how they’re in love and they just wanted to get rid of the husband, but really, why should they have to give up the money too?

David closes his eyes and breathes.

 

Cook drives him home after they finish up most of their paperwork, closing the case. It’s always been sort of, like, their _thing_ , to go back to one of their places and watch cheesy movies and eat junk food together after they solve a case, after they bring someone to justice. This time though, David laughs when Cook locks the door behind them, coming into the apartment.

“Cook, Gosh, nobody is secretly stalking me, I promise,” David says, walking to the DVD cabinet and taking his jacket off as he goes. “What do you want to watch?” he asks, eyes scanning the rows of Disney movies and musicals. 

He’s jerked backward though when Cook grabs his hand and pulls him up, spinning him around. David, startled, makes a noise and tries to pull back, which just unbalances him and he almost ends up falling instead. Cook grips his other arm, but still doesn’t let go of his hand. David looks up, confused. “Cook?”

Cook is staring at him, all dark bluish-gray eyes and stubble worse than usual from not shaving in two days, and David can see that his bottom lip is chapped, even though David had told him to use chapstick just that morning at the station. He swallows, and repeats, “Cook?”

“Arch,” Cook says back, quietly, roughly, and the hand on his arm pushes up, gently in contrast, until it’s under David’s chin, tilting his face up, and before David can honestly think _he’s going to kiss me_ , Cook is moving forward, leaning in and pressing David’s back into the cabinet of DVD’s, making a few of the cases fall and hit the ground. David couldn’t care less, because Cook’s hand is slipping up to his face, fingers curling into the hair on his neck, behind his ear, and Cook’s stubble is kind of scratchy but ticklish at the same time as it brushes against his chin and cheek, and it’s like everything has just _sped up_ , and David just wants it to stop, to freeze, so he can take this all in, pretend it’s real—so he can figure out why—so he can just _understand_ what’s _happening_ —

Cook pushes his mouth against David’s, soft and hard, chapped and incredible despite being short and simple, just lips against lips, nothing else about it, probably the simplest kiss David’s had since he was nineteen.

When he pulls back, David’s hands are fisted in Cook’s shirt, and his mouth is hanging open. He swallows and looks up, just in time for Cook to smile—nervously, smile _nervously_ , like he’s the one who just got kissed by his best friend, like _he’s_ the one who just got kissed by the man he’s been in love with for _years_ —and say, “So I think I might like you.”

Freeze, breathe, wind and unwind. What?

“Don’t—don’t joke around, Cook,” David says, haltingly. He wants to move—to leave, run away, but Cook is still holding him there, against the cabinet like he can’t—he can’t afford to let him go.

Cook shakes his head, “I’m so not joking. Not about this, not right now. It’s too—” He breaks off, and then continues, “It’s too important.”

David waits, closes his eyes. This is—his stomach is jumping with butterflies, because this can’t be real. He’s wanted it for too long for it to be _real_ , truly, honestly, _real_. With a harsh breath, he says, “I think I’ve liked you since we worked on our first case together, Cook.”

It’s silent for a second, just long enough for David to regret speaking at all, before Cook smiles, and it kind of, like, morphs into a grin before David can even smile back. Cook says, “So, popcorn and Treasure Planet?” while still holding onto David, not letting him move yet. “Or,” Cook continues, “we could skip the movie altogether and—“

David manages to pull his arm back in time to hit Cook and say, “Oh my Gosh, _shut up_.”

Cook pulls him forward and kisses him again, and that’s—that’s better than popcorn and Treasure Planet anyway.


End file.
